City (1952)

I had high hopes for this sci-fi novel by Clifford D. Simak, for nostalgic reasons as well as due to some surprise recommendations in recent years. It turns out to be a “fix-up novel,” as Wikipedia labels it, meaning it’s a collection of previously published stories revised and worked up with connections and transitions and such. Ray Bradbury did a few of them, like The Martian Chronicles. I will say Simak’s connective tissue is clever, with notes for each story by some obscure far-future academic putting them in a context of scientific debate and history. The title is somewhat misleading as the very first story argues that the city as a social structure has become obsolete through technology, and from then on it is. People live everywhere on multiple-acre estates. Humanity has fallen by the second story, replaced by intelligent, speaking canines—dogs. I love animals but I had a hard time feeling this plot point. The scope of time across this novel (“novel”) is vast, some 12,000 years, twice our entire recorded history. That gives Simak a lot of opportunity to stretch out, and indeed there are often centuries between these stories. Interesting mutant humans and immortal robots also appear. I felt Simak’s humanity—the pathos of City is richer and deeper than most SF work I know from the ‘50s. Or maybe I just love dogs, or haven’t read enough SF from the '50s. Even I thought the dogs felt like an eccentric device in the end. Still, I’m touched one of them was modeled after one of Simak’s own. My nostalgia is from being a neighbor of Simak’s in the ‘60s when I was growing up in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. He was on one of my paper routes. I know now he worked for the newspaper I was delivering, but I actually recognized his name then as an SF author. I’d seen his byline in anthologies though they none of his stories ever stood out or stuck with me. I thought of introducing myself but had no idea what to say, so I never did. I don’t remember his dogs. Anyway, when I saw the book talked up on social media in recent years—this era of distraction makes it harder to remember specifically where some information comes from—I bought a copy and finally got to it. I’m sorry I didn’t like it more. At the same time, I’m glad something like this, so earnestly compassionate, with such random strange ideas, is as popular in SF circles as it appears to be.

In case the library is closed due to pandemic, which is over.